NITE OWL - Aficionados of the likes of 'Nadja' and 'The Addiction' may get into this NYC East Village art-vampire flick. Interestingly it predates those other two movies by a few years, although it broadly speaks the same stand-offish semi avant language and dallies with similar themes - alienation, addiction, big city disconnect - and features a similar lack of genre orientation. Fans of pre-refurbishment New York will dig its scumbag ambience, to which the swarming, grain heavy 16mm B&W photography is well suited. It follows Jake, a dispossessed young guy who hangs out in clubs until he can find someone to take home. The inevitable blood spilling happens until he meets performance artist Ann Guish, whose deadpan poetry recitals about being raped by snakes set his heart a-flutter. Unfortunately, the brother of one of his victims is out to exact revenge. 'Nite Owl' is not a great film, but it really worked for me. As mentioned above, it has none of the trappings of genre beyond a few off-hand vampire references, and plays more like a loose, experimental student film than a horror movie. This might put a few people off, but I for one was really taken by the scummy milieu (late eighties Manhattan) which feels simultaneously melancholy and apocalyptic, and somehow evokes the fade out and implosion of the city's infamously decadent underbelly culture. People live by night and dance to the early house music which dominates the soundtrack (and is often belted out live by the heavily featured 'Screamin' Rachael', who does a version of 'Voodoo Ray'), or sit around bemoaning aimlessly like only twentysomething slackers can. Every once in a while, there's a killing. A really interesting horror-indie, as opposed to indie-horror This one came out on Sub-Rosa a few years ago, and I think it's still hangs around looking pretty cheap in the various online market places.
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